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Those ALS Challenges Wasting 25k Tons of Water

By now we've all seen politicians, celebrities, regular people, and
whatever Lady Gaga is, getting cold and wet for the "ALS Ice
Bucket Challenge," the latest series of viral videos to fundraise for amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis, aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease. The premise of the challenge is to
dump a bucket of ice cold water on your head, and those who refuse to do so are supposed to donate $100 to the ALS
Association. The small effort required here is the perfect mix of clicktivism and activism to get the people
going, pushing donors to give $15.6 million compared to the $1.8 million
donated last year during the same time period.

But seeing as a vast majority of notable figures taking part
in the “challenge” are Hollywood elites, it’s actually inconsiderate of
them to be wasting our precious California water supply while we’re in the
worst drought ever of all time (since 1895). This satirical article from the
Daily Currant claimed that authorities in California were handing out water fines to those caught taking part in the Ice Bucket Challenge – which, considering the recently okayed 100%
real fines for washing cars, watering lawns, and hosing down sidewalks,
isn’t too far into the realm of fantasy. While the challenge has
obviously raised a great deal of money for a debilitating disease, do we
have to do it with water? Why can’t we, and I’ll never say this again, follow
in the footsteps of Charlie Sheen and dump ice cold cash on ourselves, and then
donate that cash?

Twitter users are utilizing the hashtag #droughtshaming
to call out people wasting water, and other folks are using different Cali resources to spread awareness. In one video, a Long Beach resident dumps a
bucket of sand on himself, “real California
style” to point out the reality of how much water we're losing with this campaign. And then the
Long Beach Post figured out that based on the 1.2 million videos uploaded
since June 1st, assuming everyone used an average of five gallons,
we’re looking at 6 million gallons wasted in the last few months. That’s a ton
of water (actually its 25,000
tons!)

Why don’t we use something besides water, maybe Pepto Bismol
or Frosted Flakes? Really any non-scarce resource will do; lighter fluid,
glitter, even motor oil is probably better in the long run. Anyway, donate to
the ALS Foundation here,
you cheap, wet bastards.